Interviews and Surveys

Interviews and Surveys

On this page, written records can be found for those interested in the results and what kinds of questions were asked during our interviews and surveys in the settlement. Full results from community testing of the Arivi Safe Paraffin Stove are also available here.

View of C Section from the Guest House

Preliminary Interviews in the Community

In the first week, we toured the park with a co-researcher and went to various homes looking for details about the cooking methods in the settlement. Siya Magada, the co-researcher, walked into homes, describing who we were and what we were going to be asking. The residents proceeded to welcome us and answer our questions. We used these informal interviews to get an idea of the needs of the community, and tried to pinpoint the best way to approach the problem. From these interviews we discovered that cooking was a much larger concern than home heating (which was in our original proposal). Another important fact we got out of our interactions was the fact that the back half of C section had very limited access to electricity, which is where paraffin stoves are more prevalent. Siya took a variety of pictures showing the existing conditions and the current stoves that people use.

Community Trials of the Arivi Safe Paraffin Stove

Through our contact with Arivi, a stove manufacturer based in Johannesburg, we were able to obtain a prototype of a safe paraffin stove that is to be released on the market sometime in 2010. Once we received the Arivi Safe Paraffin Stove, a representative of the company demonstrated how to operate the stove. Then we proceeded to boil water and cook rice with the stove to further our understanding of how the stove worked. Once we became familiar with using the stove, we decided to allow the residents of Monwabisi Park to try the stove for a night to give us their opinions of the stove. We gave the residents surveys to record their results and to express their opinions of the stove. Each time we gave the stove to a resident, we went with a co-researcher to their house and gave a brief demonstration on how to use the stove, as well as made sure they understood how to complete the survey. This stove survey helped us understand the benefits and flaws of the stove, how much each resident would be willing to pay for it, and if they would be willing to make weekly or monthly payments in order to help them afford to buy the stove. Generally, we found that people who had been using a flame stove regularly liked the Arivi flame stove more for the following reasons:

Comparing the Arivi and ParaSafe Stoves

Buyiswa Tonono, who was the director of the Indlovu Project during the course of our project and is now the owner and director of the crèche, brought to our attention a safe primus stove from ParaSafe that we looked into further. We compared the Arivi Safe Paraffin Stove, a flame stove, to the ParaSafe Primus Stove. The test concluded that both stoves are more efficient, safer alternatives to the current paraffin stoves used in Monwabisi Park.

Week Long Cooking Survey

To get a better idea of the cooking habits in the community, we went to various community members and asked them to participate in a week long survey. We found ten people who agreed to keep track of each meal they cook, how long they cook for, how they cooked the meal, and various other details.